Leeds v Northampton: Teams
Leeds Carnegie entertain Northampton Saints with both sides needing the points at opposite ends of the Guinness Premiership table.
Last Updated: 02/04/10 4:52pm
Leeds Carnegie entertain Northampton Saints with both sides needing the points at opposite ends of the Guinness Premiership table.
Second-from-bottom Leeds lost 19-10 at Gloucester last time and remain deep in relegation trouble, although the Yorkshire side will take heart from three consecutive league victories prior to their defeat at Kingsholm.
Coaching duo Andy Key and Neil Back have elected to make just one change to their starting line-up for the clash, with Samoan international Alfie To'oala starting at number eight in place of Rhys Oakley, who is among the replacements.
Scott Mathie retains his place at scrum-half while young fly-half Joe Ford is back on the bench after missing last week's defeat with a back injury sustained in the pre-match warm-up.
Unchanged Saints
High-flying Northampton Saints have named an unchanged starting line-up after winning 14-9 against Wasps last time.
That victory was the Saints' fifth successive league and cup success but director of rugby Jim Mallinder is taking nothing for granted at Headingley.
The Northampton boss is expecting a difficult game and believes that his second-placed Saints will have to be on top form against the resurgent hosts.
"Leeds have beaten some good teams at home in the past month," said Mallinder.
"Andy Key and Neil Back have put together a very competitive team that is now settled in the Premiership.
"They have a solid core of experience, some good young talent and players coming back from injury. They will certainly ask us plenty of questions.
"We did not reach the standards we set ourselves against Wasps last week and all of the players have worked hard in training to try to get us back to the form of previous weeks.
"No one is looking any further ahead that achieving a positive result at Leeds on Saturday afternoon."
Leeds Carnegie: 15 Leigh Hinton, 14 Henry Fa'afili, 13 Seru Rabeni, 12 Scott Barrow, 11 Lee Blackett, 10 CeironThomas, 9 Scott Mathie, 1 Mike Macdonald, 2 Andy Titterrell, 3 Juan Gomez, 4 Erik Lund, 5 Marco Wentzel (c), 6 Kearnan Myall, 7 Hendre Fourie, 8 Alfie To'oala.
Replacements: 16 Vili Ma'asi, 17 Gareth Hardy, 18 Phil Swainston, 19 Calum Clark, 20 Rhys Oakley, 21 Joe Bedford, 22 Joe Ford, 23 Richard Welding.
Northampton Saints: 15 Ben Foden, 14 Chris Ashton, 13 Joe Ansbro, 12 James Downey, 11 Bruce Reihana, 10 Stephen Myler, 9 Lee Dickson, 1 Brian Mujati, 2 Brett Sharman, 3 Euan Murray, 4 Courtney Lawes, 5 Juandre Kruger, 6 Mark Easter, 7 Phil Dowson (c), 8 Roger Wilson.
Replacements: 16 Andy Long, 17 Regardt Dreyer, 18 Soane Tonga'uiha, 19 James Cannon, 20 Neil Best, 21 Alan Dickens, 22 Shane Geraghty, 23 Jon Clarke.